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Background programmes waiting to close?

Palfrem

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A while back I bought a Sony Vaio desktop (the one with all the gubbins in the monitor case) and generally I'm happy with the performance.

When I shut it down it hangs for several minutes with "waiting for background programmes to close - force shut-down yes / no"

Any ideas what could be running please as I have never had any of this wth previous PC's or laptops.

I've dumped a load of Sony bloat-ware and other pre-installed junk, but I can't figure out what could be taking so long to close as I close all programmes ( Thunderbird, IE, Word, etc.) before shutting down.

Thanks in advance
 
Could be windows itself or some programs are tsr and also many nowadays are programmed to stay in touch with base and 'check for updates' and other stuff.
Have a look in you run directory in the registry, and also go through task manager and see whats lurking there.
 
Could be windows itself or some programs are tsr and also many nowadays are programmed to stay in touch with base and 'check for updates' and other stuff.
Have a look in you run directory in the registry, and also go through task manager and see whats lurking there.

Ugh! TSR ;)
 
Terminate and Stay Resident?
 
Sorry - what's TSR please?

Terminate and Stay Resident

Type of program that used to run under DOS. You ran it and it would set itself up and then appear to terminate (the command line prompt would reappear) but would actually keep running.

Eg. Borland Sidekick (SideKick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

DOS networking stuff often ran this way.

It technically died out with multitasking capability. But there's a lot of services and software that gets started automatically under Windows (eg. the icons on the bottom right). They're the modern equivalent of TSRs. Sitting there usually unoticed but sometimes causing prolems.
 
Under Windows more than one programme or application can be running at the same time, for example I have Outlook, Internet Explorer and anti virus running now. The buzzword is multitasking. Under DOS you could only have one application running. Some clever so-and-sos worked out how to fool DOS into believing their application had terminated (so another could be run) but stayed resident in memory and ran in the background.
 
Hi
it could be some of that Sony stuff you took off?
You could try a 'three finger salute' (control-alt-delete) and see if any processes are listed as running while it's shutting down?
If you look in Event Viewer is there any issues listed from the last shutdown?

cheers!
 
You could try a 'three finger salute' (control-alt-delete)

I worked at a place recently where, confusingly, the ol' Vulcan Nerve Pinch was required to log on. :D
 
Try ccleaner-piriform limited-clean out the junk-otherwise a free trial of system mechanic-will enable you to look at bloat ware and turn off programmes you dont need.
Incidentally which windows operating system-hope not vista unless you have at least 2GB memory min
 
In my experience, the system is waiting for a service(s) to stop - of which your machine will have many starting and are used by all sorts of things for various functions. You have core Windows services and additional services added by software (like antivirus).

When closing down, these are all attempted to be stopped.

Normally it is one which takes longer than Windows thinks it should take and it offers you up a chance to kill the one causing an issue.

If there are more than one, you get your experience.

I would begin by starting the machine, leaving it on for 5 minutes to do everything it needs to, don't start anything or use it for anything, then shut it down and see what you get...
 
Many thanks to everyone.

It's a high end machine with bags of spare whizz to do pretty much anything.

I think I'll go with JEBoy and see what shows up.
 
What I said is not a fix btw - you are basically trying to isolate what it is that is causing it.

If you start it, don't use anything and shut the machine down, and it still does it, you know it is something(s) that starts with the machine and runs by itself (like antivirus or those other crapware items which are running near the clock).

If it is fine, then it is most likely something you are using.

My guess is it will do it after doing nothing as per above.

Meanwhile, if you know when you last shut the machine down, have a look in Event Viewer (START > RUN > EVENTVWR) within the SYSTEM and APPLICATION logs at around that time and see if anything errored or complained (normally red cross by them).
 
It shut down without the usual dialogue.

Loads of red in the event viewer:- printer stuff, assigning network address, some media player crap, crash dump initialisation failed is a regular, and many more
 
Has the PC used more than one printer, or a network printer or drive which is no longer connected? Check 'Device manager' for missing hardware.
Try updating your network card drivers too

For the crash dump message, try - Control Panel\System - Click on "Advanced System Settings" on the left
Click 'Advanced'
Under "Startup and Recovery" select "Settings"
Make sure you have a check mark beside "Write an event to the system log"
From the dropdown select 'Small memory dump'- then 'ok' your way out
(I always turn off 'Automatic restart' too )

Did the message mention which media player?

cheers
 
If it has shut down without a problem, it might then be something you are using.

Personally, I wouldn't bother solving the issues in red at this stage because these events are occurring and the machine was able to shutdown without an issue after the test.

I would jot down the time you did this shutdown test so you have a reference point to look back at.

You now want the issue to occur so you can look in the Event Viewer and compare then against your previous jotted-down time events to see if there is a 'new' event in there which might give us a clue.

You don't need to look at hundreds of events - if you shutdown the machine at say 18:00 (use the clock on that PC to write the time down from), you are looking from then until the time it came up with the dopey error which should be within 30 seconds I would have thought.

Don't forget to look in SYSTEM and APPLICATION.

What I would try next is use the machine as normal and when you next get the issue you raised initially, don't force it to shutdown (i.e. cancel the shutdown and return to the desktop) and then do a:

CTRL + SHIFT + ESC

...or right click on the Taskbar at the bottom and start Task Manager.

Have a look in the first tab (Applications) and see what is in there.

Hopefully you will see one or more things with 'Not responding' by them.

If not, look under Processes and just order in CPU time (click on the CPU heading to sort). If 'System Idle Process' is not 99, what other items are using a lot (things that use a lot of processor time either need to or have crashed - chances are when you are shutting down, it's not the former!).

Then do the Event Viewer check.

This will give us a clue what is not able to close.

What Operating System are you running?
 
In that case - you will need to press the button in Task Manager which has 'Show processes from all users' written on it to see 'System Idle Process'.
 

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